Page 56 of Royal Salvation

Lucía watched the power dynamic between the two men and saw cracks she might be able to exploit.

“I said check the fucking back, Playboy.” Chess looked angry but relaxed his expression and changed his tone at Playboy’s obvious building anger. “Please. I don’t trust them, but I know I can trust you.”

“Fine, but I’m having a smoke while I’m out there.”

“That’s okay, just watch your six.”

“Always do, my man.” Playboy disgustingly grabbed his crotch and laughed as he made a thrusting motion at her. “Back soon, bitch. Then we can play.”

Lucía watched Chess move a kitchen chair into the middle of the room and felt her belly knot tight. Not giving in to fear would be the hardest thing she’d done but she had to fight, for her family and for Justice. That man would blame himself for eternity if she died.

“What do you want from me?”

Chess strolled over to her and gently took her arm, hoisting her into a standing position. He led her toward the chair and sat her down with a push, before going behind her and cutting the ties on her wrists. “Don’t do anything stupid.”

“I won’t.” If compliance got her hands free from the ties, she’d take it.

Coming around the front of the chair, he leaned down and reached a hand to her belly. “I need you to grow me some nice healthy babies in here for a few years, then you can die. From what I hear, you’ll be begging for death. But first, we have to get that idiot Reaper to think you’re dead.”

The calm with which he spoke sent a chill down her spine, but it was the words that made her heart beat so hard she thought she might die from it. Lucía moved to flee, her fight or flight reaction choosing flight, but she forgot her ankles were tied together and fell to the ground at Chess’ feet. A dark rumble of laughter filled the room, and she knew she’d reacted exactly as he’d expected. Tears bit her eyes and she furiously blinked them back. She wouldn’t give him the satisfaction of seeing her cry.

His hands were rough this time as he dragged her to the seat again and secured her hands in front of her.

“That was silly. I had considered keeping you from Playboy and only allowing the insemination to be a medical procedure, but my boy deserves some fun.”

The thought of Playboy or anyone other than Justice touching her filled her mouth with bile. “Why are you doing this?”

“The company I’m working with are breeding sleepers. Those kids will be the finest soldiers in history. Have the best education, unique and innovative training, and the most ground-breaking fitness and health techniques will be used. They’ll be the greatest assets the world has ever seen. Nobody will be able to beat them, they’ll be killing machines. And the real beauty is that when they’re out there in the world, nobody will suspect a thing. They’ll have ordinary lives until they’re activated.”

Lucía reared back in horror at what he was suggesting and even more so that he believed what he was saying. “You can’t be serious? You’d bring these kids up in a mini army and train them to kill?”

“They’ll have the very best and their fee will be the work they do when asked.”

“What about the mothers and fathers?”

“You have to break some eggs to make an omelette, Princess. The fathers will be elite soldiers chosen by the doctors, and the mothers are either runaways or drug addicts with no other choice. We’re helping those women.”

Her emotions were running hot as she fought to understand how anyone could think this was okay. “You’re taking their babies.”

“Babies they can’t look after. Do you know what it’s like to grow up poor, with no money for food? Wearing clothes with holes in them because your mother stuck the money you needed for food or clothing in her veins?”

A kernel of sympathy seeded its way into her, and she shook her head. “No, I don’t, but this isn’t the way.”

“It is, and it gets me a life I never imagined when I was sitting in that crack house watching my mother die.”

“What about me? I’m not a runaway or a drug addict.”

“No, you’re my ticket to the good life. With your breeding and an elite solider as the father, I’ll get top dollar and the threat of that photo off my back.”

“It’s not you in the photo. You could walk away.”

Chess shook his head. “No, Playboy saved me when we were kids, offered me friendship and a way out of the system. I couldn’t walk away from him.”

“But you don’t approve of what he does?”

Chess cocked his head to look at the door behind her. “Playboy has something broken inside him. He needs to do the things he does. It’s a sickness. I just help him control it so he stays off the radar and when I can’t, his father or Godfather does.”

“Except the last time when he couldn’t, and you both got booted for it.”